The drone world is abuzz with talk and speculation about an upcoming DJI drone, reportedly called the Mavic Pro. Leaked images along with a scheduled DJI Event in NYC (Droneflyers.com will be there!) indicate the introduction of a new product line which is foldable and compact – and yet has advanced features.

Here is a youtube “official” release video (but not from DJI, so not official in that way!)

———below posted in advance of launch——- Some of the “leaked” images and renderings are below. We could make some guesses as to the price and capabilities but, at this point, Tuesday is coming soon so we will simply update this article when we get our hands on the Real Thing. A discussion thread in our forums will allow for a continuous back and forth for those who buy, fly or have questions about this model.

Yet another Failure to Launch! (and, later in the article, some new drones that are actually being produced and sold).

After 18 months of development, GoPro obviously does not have their drone working properly! This is a BIG deal for a number of reasons, some of them given below.

Timeline

GoPro announced their intention to bring a drone to market in November of 2014 – over 18 months ago! At the time GoPro was worth almost 10 billion dollars (market cap) and therefore had plenty of money to develop a drone or similarly complex product. Moreover, they hired as product manager an employee from 3D Robotics – Pablo Lema – who we can assume brought some existing knowledge into the project. Due to this hire, it’s assumed that the drone uses code (flight controller programming and/or hardware) which was from the same open source project that 3DR used (Arducopter). This, again, should have given them a jump on R&D as they would not have had to develop the flight controller from scratch.

GoPro took their time in developing their new model – which actually seemed like a good idea after the failures of 3DR and others who rushed new models to market. However, events of the past week have now cast a shadow on GoPro’s ability to deliver a groundbreaking product.

Failure to Launch

My inbox and some forums were abuzz in the last week with speculation that GoPro was getting ready to launch the Karma Drone in early June. This date was cast in stone as a major media and PR push was being coordinated around it. Given normal timelines, this meant the drone and spec/literature/ads had to already have been ready. After all, just the shipping and stocking of large quantities of a consumer electronics product from China could easily take a month or more.

Announcement of Further Delay

On thursday, May 5, Nick Woodman (GoPro CEO) announced that the Karma would not be launced as planned and would be further delayed until the “Holiday Season”. Here is a MarketWatch article with those announcements and quotes.

As if to admit his level of cluelessness, the GoPro CEO offered the following quote:“As late as this week, we believed Karma’s launch was on schedule,” said Nick Woodman

This is virtually impossible. Either Nick was too busy surfing and partying or something else is up. It’s our guess that the levels of management and communication within GoPro are lacking, meaning that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.[Read more…]